


Of Blood and Bruises

by hellolife21



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Drabble, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-14
Updated: 2012-08-14
Packaged: 2017-11-12 03:09:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/486008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellolife21/pseuds/hellolife21
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek comes to Stiles covered in blood...again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Blood and Bruises

**Author's Note:**

> -Blood and descriptions of it  
> -Sterek  
> -Established Stiles/Derek (implied)  
> -Drabble

Blood. There is blood everywhere. It runs in rivers down the tiled wall of Stiles’s bathroom. It pools in the blue bottom of the tub, mixes with the water until it’s a light pink and goes down the drain, chased by pale pink soap suds. It’s not his. Not tonight. Tonight it’s blood from Derek that courses its way down the wall and drips into the water in the bottom of the tub that can’t seem to make its way down the drain fast enough. It’s blood from him, but not all his.  
Derek is slumped against the cold tile, shoulder supporting him from collapsing down into the tub below. He’s been in another fight with another pack of betas. Betas that were sent after him by another alpha. Another alpha, of another pack trying to move into Beacon Hills territory.

Stiles used a large plastic bowl to pour water down Derek’s back and remove the blood. The shower head was outdated and didn’t detach from the wall. Derek watched Stiles move with ease, filling the bowl from the shower head, tipping and pouring it over him. He wished Stiles didn’t have to do this. Didn’t have to see him like this. Derek wished things could be different between them, how it used to be, before the rival packs started showing up to challenge him. Before the seemingly nightly showers of blood going down the drain.

Stiles pours his last bowl of water down Derek’s back, satisfied that he is clean. He sees Derek looking at him through heavy, half lidded eyes. “What?”

“I’m sorry,” Derek whispers, his voice rough, throat scratchy. Stiles thinks maybe he’d taken a blow to the throat again and was still recovering. It wouldn’t be the first time.

“You apologize every time. You don’t have to.”

“You shouldn’t have to do this.”

Stiles’s heart clenches and his stomach feels tight. Derek hardly sounds like himself, he sounds broken and disappointed. Stiles puts his arm around Derek’s side and helps him out of the bathtub and to his room. He gets him a pair of boxers and jogging pants from a dresser and Derek dresses himself stiffly.   


Derek may be supernatural, and he may be able to heal himself, but he still got sore. The bruises may not be visible, the cuts long since healed, but they were still there, set into the memory of the muscle. Without sleep, Derek’s body couldn’t heal entirely and he would become stiff and achy. 

Stiles gives Derek a light push to the chest and he falls back on the mattress of Stiles’s full size bed. Stiles flips off the light, crawls on the bed beside Derek and settles with their sides pressed together. 

“Don’t talk,” Derek says.

“This has to stop.”

“I said-”

“And I’m ignoring you. You can’t keep coming to me bloody and beaten. Maybe I can try to help again so you don’t end up so-”

“No,” Derek growls, low and threatening enough to keep Stiles from finishing his sentence. Stiles went out to help the pack fight off threats many times, most often armed with a gun he stole from his dad’s room. If they were dealing with a rival pack, he would get wolfsbane bullets from Allison to load the gun with. It worked well, until Stiles ended up beaten and bloody in a creek bed.

After that, Derek kept him out of the loop. He exiled him from pack meetings, told him only what was necessary afterwards. He threatened the lives of his betas if they spoke a word about the meetings to Stiles. One guy, about 20, who was Derek’s new ‘recruit’ lasted all of two weeks before he went and blabbed to Stiles about a hunt coming up. Derek made an example of him. His body lays in a grave with a Mr. Samuel F. Tucker at the Beacon Hills cemetery.

After that little tip from the ‘new guy’, Stiles went ahead of the pack to try and head off the imminent threat. He went without being properly equipped weapon or knowledge wise. In fact, what he thought was going to be witches, turned out to be ghouls. He came home in Derek’s arms, bleeding profusely from his leg and back as well as his arm, which was shredded. He had to wear long sleeve shirts and jackets for about two months until the wounds healed and scars were light enough to go unnoticed.

Stiles still has the scars, nearly invisible now. Derek massages his fingers over them. Stiles knows it’s all the explanation he needs as to why Derek is so adverse to him helping the pack anymore. 

“You should sleep,” Stiles whispers into the darkness.

“And you shouldn’t worry. I’ll always come back.”

“No matter how bloody and broken.”

Derek swallows audibly. “No matter how bloody and broken.”

 


End file.
